NGE: Asuka and Stupid Shinji Save the World
by Toriano.Flacko
Summary: The world is done. Third Impact came and went. Humanity may yet recover... but screw that. Why come back from something you can go back and stop from happening in the first place? Rated T for swearing and 'situations'. May change.
1. What Fails to Kill You Makes You Weird

_Disclaimer: Really, for this one I'm only doing it the once and that's it. I don't own NGE or any directly related characters (or does the disclaimer clause reach this far? even so, I don't take credit for how things got screwed up; only for how I WILL screw them up). Mwa ha.  
_

NGE: Asuka and Stupid Shinji Save the World  
What Fails to Kill You Makes You Weird. Period.

Cicadas. She can hear cicadas outside, in the drop-shaft, in the stairwell, in the hallway, in this _room_.

Useless creatures. How annoying. How was it, that even through Second and Third Impact, even with the fall of mankind and all the Angels stomping around for the last few years, freaking _bugs_ lasted longer than all more advanced species? That's what Sohryu Asuka Langley wants to know, among other things. Things such as when her next bath would be, if she would live long enough to see such a thing come to pass, who would be bathing her corpse/would she come back to haunt his or her everyday life, and whether or not she would kill stupid Shinji for leaving her alone again with no warning.

Sure there was the part where Hikari, Suzuhara, Aida and Maya had still been around the camp at the time that she woke up to keep her from completely freaking out, but that was besides the point. Asuka was angry. Things got hurt when Asuka was angry. Some of these things inanimate and undeserving of such abuse, as well as not normally malleable to such extent by human hands, but her main target was certainly not lifeless. Yet. Nor was he undeserving.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" She has to ask first. Out of curiosity, 'boredom', fear for her own sanity or just to foreshadow the beatdown he was about to get, take your pick. The fact that she was a little out of breath meant nothing when it came to abusing the idiot that ended all life on the planet.

"I'm saving the human race and being a badass. What does it look like I'm doing?" Now, normally, you'd be right; no, Ikari Shinji isn't the kind of guy to say something like this(unless drunk). Then again, _normally_ Ikari Shinji is walking home/to Misato's apartment at this time of day (to 'not' get drunk), and not waist-deep in wires and papers and other things that might have been computers and glass at one point, in the pit that used to be Terminal Dogma, nor is he _normally_ one of the last remaining people in the world, with only her and a small selection of friends for company (and totally sober with no hint of refrigerated alcohol in site).

And to be perfectly clear, he looked like he was trying to do a Doc Brown impression. Badly.

Asuka tilts her head to the side, hands on her hips, weight shifted to one leg and vengeance temporarily delayed in favor of actually figuring out what the hell was going on. "Then what was that last week?"

"I've thought about what Maya said since then and she's right, that probably would have lead to inbreeding, eventually. But this isn't 'that'. I wasn't trying to be badass back then, and you made it clear that 'that' is a bad idea, especially when it involves you, so I won't mention it again. To you."

"Eh… to tell you the truth, I don't really mind. Just, you know, _not out in the open_. You feel me, stupid?"

"I've thought about what you just said, thus I will make a point to mention it as much as I can once my plan works. For now though…" He turns around and trails off, just staring at her wide-eyed for a few seconds before wiping his nose and clearing his throat. "F_ing sweet. That's good to know."

"Damn straight. Now, what are you doing?" She sits on the stairs, crossing her legs with her hands on her knees. He appreciates the view in his new way; silent and staring. Maybe drooling a little. "Pervert."

He blinks.

"I'm makin' a time machine. I mean, looking for one... wait, no, making one. Yes," he says, turning back to the wires.

"... Uh-huh. What's that, and why are you making one?"

"Well, it's supposed to be, like the ultimate power or something. Lets people go back or forward in time to some event they want to change. Has a lot of confusing BS about 'silent annihilation,' changing the timeline, and tends to become completely useless when people f_ with it."

"Sounds like something a nerd would come up with."

"True, but remember; until recently we were part of an underground organization that existed to destroy the messengers of God with giant war machines."

"That doesn't-"

"These messengers of God were called 'Angels', and were usually big, with only one weak spot, lasers or tentacles, the ability to regenerate and a tendency to let out a lot of red stuff we called 'LCL' when they died. Which was usually after a large amount of property-damage."

"Well-"

"The machines we used to fight these 'Angels' all -required- eating somebody's soul to even work, and in theory, anybody who piloted one successfully had to be under 18 and have suffered severe mental trauma as a child."

"... Touji?"

"I repeat, 'successfully'. Like, in the long run."

"Meh, probably better off."

"Yeah. Oh, _and_ I had a 'sister' who had the personality of a robot half the time, clones for just in case she ever died, and somewhere after you came in the picture, started to 'like' like me and develop a case of slight split-personality disorder. Up until the point where she fused with the huge seven-eyed Angel we 'happened' to keep in our basement, thus destroying all life on Earth."

"You've got a point there."

"I know, right?" Asuka taps her chin, wondering just where they got sidetracked.

"So, this... time machine thing... it's like a..."

"...?"

"... I got nothin'."

"Yeah, me neither."

"Who told you what you know about it?"

"Ayanami, Maya, Hyuga, Pen-Pen, Ritsuko, Kirishima... uh, Dad-"

"Waitwaitwait... did you say Pen-Pen? He could talk? When was this?"

"Trust me, you don't want to know," he replies with a crooked grin, counting down in his head. _San, nii, ich-_

"_Gendo?_"

"Gendo. You know, I'm surprised you hadn't heard about it."

"Do I _look_ Asian to you?"

"Would you be offended if I offered 'Nazi'?"

"Touche. On the other hand, I have yet to see anyone around here that actually looks Japanese."

"Too late now, everyone else is dead. Besides, the time machine was apparently a vaguely Western idea… and everyone else is dead."

"That why you're makin' a time thing?"

"Hell no."

"Then why?"

"Just 'cause I can. I realized a lot of things about the people I hang around when I was about to die-"

"Which time?"

"That one last time before I came back and choked you. Sorry 'bout that last part, again."

"So long as you don't do it again without my consent, no problem. Carry on."

"So, I realized a lot of things, and one of those things was about my father and me. I realized that we never had much of a relationship beyond 'point', 'grunt', 'nod', 'BETRAYAL' and random almost heart-to-hearts."

"I thought that's all males like you needed?" Shinji shrugs. "Wait, Gendo has a heart?"

"I see that you are surprised. Just like I was. Just like everyone at NERV was. Every time he decided to even bother acting like he did. It got old after a while. But yeah, apparently he does, uh, did." Asuka taps the palm of her open hand with her still-bandaged fist.

"Ah, so you realized that your social awkwardness and insecurity were inherent, which kept you and your father from bonding like other males, which in turn crippled your ability to connect with other people. Even though those other people eventually bonded with you anyway, you now know that if things had been different between the two of you in the first place, you probably wouldn't have gone insane and decided to kill everyone before changing your mind and getting us stuck in this situation...?"

"Uh, no, I realized that my dad was probably more of a prick than I originally thought, and the 'me' of back then probably benefited from not knowing him any better, even though that might have lead to a better understanding of him. Still, that kind of situation probably would have ended with me or someone I know attempting to kill him and the SEELE organization to save the world. Which, in turn might have started a different version of the Apocalypse, admittedly."

"... Oh."

"Where'd you get all that 'bonding' stuff from?"

"I don't know, shopping with Kaji and the favorite?"

"What?" He looks up, hearing the off tone in her voice.

"Horaki's third class representative campaign?" She's scratching her head, a weird look in her eyes. He grabs a nearby screwdriver.

"Uhh…"

"Extended lack of a home-cooked meal?" Stands, paces, dancing around anything that got in her way. He lets go of the screwdriver and instead grabs a handle sticking out of a nearby box.

"Could be that one, not that we can do anything about it at this time. Deep breaths, Asuka. You're about to hyperventilate and I don't have a paper bag. Or a camera. Or-"

"Shut up!" Yelling. He was finally worried enough to stand up and fidget, one hand carefully held (hidden) behind his back.

"That's better… _slower_ deep breaths."

"I'll f_ing bite you." Teeth.

"Is it really smart to say that kind of thing to an obvious masochist and pervert?"

"I-! A what now?" All signs of irritation halt. Panic-attack diverted. Fades… gone. Confusion.

"Nothing," he says. "So, you wanted to know why, right?"

"Why what?" She raises an eyebrow as she steps closer, and not for the first time he wonders why her left eye is red now. Brushing off the thought, he decides that it is now safe to sit down again, kneeling slowly but tightening his grip on the mallet.

"Why I'm making a time machine?"

"Oh. That. Well, I figured that you aren't gonna tell me or the others now, so I'll just find out with them, later, after it's too late to do anything to stop you. Right?" She plops back down on the stairs. He gives her a look, lets go of the hammer, and thinks _'Just when did she figure that out…?'_

However, he does not say this out loud.

"… That plan _sucks_."

"What was that, Third?"

"Did I say that out loud? I said 'it should be ready in a few days'." He turns back to his work.

"… That's not what it sounded like you said, but whatever. Wait, so you found it then?"

"Maybe. Why."

"Maybe I've been alone for half my life and don't plan on living in this world in this goddamn sticky plug suit a second longer than I have to?"

"You could always go nude like you did that one time last week."

"And you could have helped me kill the Eva Series so I could kick ass and help save the world, but see what happened."

"Point. In my defense, I thought you could handle them yourself. And you probably would have kicked my ass too while you were out there."

"Besides, that would be too cold. I mean, naked, all day, every day?"

"Your alternative is a skin-tight suit that could be mistaken for fetish-wear, one that you can't clean with water (or fire) for the moment so it always smells like blood and waffles."

"Point. So, you'll let me know when it's done?"

"I'll let you know when it's done," he waves over his shoulder.

"Hnnn, I can't wait! Is it okay if I let everyone else know?" He grunts like a true member of the monkey species. She takes it as a 'whatever'. Asuka moans, gets up and stretches, disregarding the fact that there was no way she was sitting still for near long enough to need to stretch, and simply indulging in the stretchy goodness of life. Yes, life was good. And stretchy. And bendy. With accented curves-

_3…_

She imagines what she'll do first, if stupid Shinji's… _thing_ actually works. Take a bath? _Oh Gott, hot, clean water!_ She sighs, making a serious effort not to rub her hands over herself.

_2…_

Ooh, wait, eat her weight in food! Before now, before things had gotten this bad, she wouldn't have considered it anything but a slight desire, but… _food!_ She lets her fingertips rub her stomach as she turns to leave the room.

_1…_

Or maybe—

"It's finished!" Asuka whirls on her feet, jaw dropping and eyebrow raising as bolts of electricity swarm in the area around Shinji. "It's more beautiful than I thought it would be…"

The first thing the girl thinks in not 'HELL YES' at the idea of doing whatever this time-machine thing was supposed to do. It wasn't even confusion about 'wait, just what does this thing do again,' or 'that doesn't look safe.'

"I thought you said 'in a few days,' Third?" She slowly walks over to him, rubbing her eyes and blinking hard.

"Well, apparently when there's no more need for character development in a situation like ours, time moves by really really fast. Or shit just gets done faster, I don't know. Think it was an accident, really."

"Isn't that breaking the third wall?"

"Whating the what now?"

"Breaking the... hey. Is that... is that supposed to be, uh, spinning like that?" She didn't know what to call it. She didn't even know what it _looked_ like, and that only turned her excitement, little by little, into apprehension.

"I don't think -that- is supposed to be doing anything. I don't even know where that came from. Coincidence?" With that Shinji poked at the fist-sized tear in the middle of the air, and was promptly sucked into-

"Hey! Wait a-" Half a second before his hand reaches the blackness, she grabs him by the shoulder, unable to see what he's looking a-

Silence, but for the sounds of cicadas mating. Thus, Shinji and Asuka go on their first 'trip' through the timestream.

And thus, the screwing of the world began.


	2. The Curious Case of Akagi Naoko

_I said that first time would be the last time, so it is. This is just the pre-donut rant, feel free to ignore with EXTREME prejudice. Alrighty then, this one's been in progress since, like, the very second this one finished the first, and spread itself further than This One originally expected. As such, sorry for any misconceptions, for This One really needs to check his facts again. Also, for conversation confusion; it's pretty simple, there's gonna be a hint who's talkin' every now and then, but other than that, it's straight back and forth... sounds totally wrong. He tried to stuff some good ole character development in there -too soon? But it may seem a bit rushed. By the way, let me know if the rant was, like, totally unnecessary or what. And if ya want, try an' spot the reference! Anyway, This One will now begin R-R'ing in the, like, two hour break he's givin' himself. Then on with the next one!_

_._

_._

_.  
_

Stupid Shinji and Asuka Save the World**  
**Chapter 2: The Curious Case of Akagi Naoko

"Heeeeee~ey, Kensuke-kun…" The young ex-cameraman-wannabe freezes in the position he is crouching in at the sound of his ex-class representative's voice. No, he is not about to be caught in the act of jerking off, which he wasn't indulging in anyway. No, Horaki Hikari is not looking for him for any reason even remotely related to that sad excuse for an assumption.

And just for the record, for any who would in another time, imply otherwise; no. Aida Kensuke has not fantasized about his class representative at all since Touji called dibs, nor since meeting up with either of them again outside of Instrumentality. Really, if he actually thought about it, she was more like a sister to him, if anything.

Admittedly, an evil, bipolar older sister with the emotional stability of an itchy trigger-finger, and who happened to be dating one of his best/only friends, but a sister nonetheless.

"Aida-kun?" But what does this have to do with his body locking up like this when he hears her calling out like that? Well, he... will never admit this freely (what situation would call for it?), but he is still recuperating from his time in _that_ place. Instrumentality, limbo, Moe's Tavern, _whatever_ the hell it was called, he was glad he wasn't there anymore. Besides the part where it didn't quite feel real (no cameras or firearms worked right. Don't ask. Seriously), there was the part where, after he _realized_ that... he kind of got lost on the way out.

And _maybe_ fell into someone else's dream world. A place where, apparently, Rei ruled the world, and had clones that... _did_ things to her 'special friends'. Weird things. Anal things. Occasionally creepy things.

Things that Kensuke had been _carefully_ erasing from his memories in the two days following his return to the world of the living; for the last twenty-four hours. Among those things was a sing-songy voice, one that haunted his dreams like drugs haunted many a crackhead for decades pre-Second Impact.

_"Heeeee~ey."_

"Whatcha doin'?"

Here, the boy has a choice of three actions that would make sense coming from him [_he saw red eyes, red eyes, blue hair, white teeth, red eyes, more teeth than a human should have floating in a smile in the shadows, a school uniform, blue hair, pale skin, pipe cleaners, vent shafts, oh__**god**__those eyes..._] when Hikari slides behind him. He goes over them in short order in the half-moment he takes to decide what he will do.

1) Scream like a little girl.

2) Send her into a panic by falling back on her whilst frothing at the mouth.

3) Turn around, hands out, screaming "Yaaa, trick!," hoping he goes for the throat and then running away from either half of a pissed-off couple for the next five odd days. Expect no assistance in surviving from _anyone_. For full mental recovery from their combined assault; five weeks, tops. Full psychological recovery; five months. Full physical recovery; consult a priest and physician in next lifetime.

He has considered his options in the 0.0025 segments of a moment since his class representative made her existence behind him known. As such, upon registering her words, his body is already in motion.

So he calmly turns around, slides off his specs, hands them to the girl, gets down on his hands and knees and _then_ slams his face into the mulchy, red-tinted dirt five times in quick succession.  
Never let it be said that Kensuke was either predictable or dramatic. Or altogether sane.

Meanwhile, his class representative and focus of a sibling complex looks on. Let it be noted that, were a normal person to witness an occurrence like the one she has just witnessed with the machine-otaku's tendencies, the first words out of his or her mouth might be somewhere along the lines of '_WhatTheF__' or '_Are you mentally stable?_' These are obviously not the words she comes up with.

No, instead she first asks the boy, "Are you done yet?"

He rises from the ground, wiping his face free of dirt and holding his forehead as he nods mutely.

"Feel better now?" She asks him as she hands him back his glasses.

He nods again as he slides them on, not looking her directly in the eye and focusing instead over her left shoulder.

"Do you think you might have brain damage?"

Here he does look her in the eye as he raises a finger and opens his mouth, honestly considering that. Then he makes a face and shrugs.

"Not really sure, huh."

He shakes his head 'no' and makes as if to sigh.

"Will you help me fine Touji-kun?"

He gives her a blank look that, in another time and place, might have been mistaken for arrogance, eyes hidden behind a nonexistent glare reflecting off his lenses. In yet another time and place, this look would signify him being riled up about something. Hikari gets a different definition altogether.

"Yes, I lost him again. I am well aware that Touji is not a doll or toy, so I shouldn't expect him to be right where I left him all the time. I am still very sure that it's not my fault this time."

He shrugs, and cocks his head at an angle, and stares… points at his own head and runs a hand through his hair.

"Yeah, I've done 'something different' with my hair," she sighs, blushing. She didn't have time for this, did she? Besides, she'd done it for Touji, and it kind of put her off that his friend noticed it before he even saw it. "So, are you going to help me or not?"

He blinks… shakes his head, returning to the blank look from before. Shrugs.

"How can it be my fault if I was asleep?" _She's using her hands to help her talk. Motions carry no immediate threat. Meh, screw it, why shouldn't I help her?_

He shrugs again and rolls his eyes, making sure he has her attention before he decides on what gestures to make. He points at her, then back over her shoulder, before pointing at himself, and jerking a thumb over his own shoulder. Then he points at her eyes, then his eyes, and spins his other hand in midair between them.

"... You want a blender?" She blinks. "Uh, sure, I could go for a shake too, I guess..."

Kensuke shakes his head vigorously, pushing his glasses up his nose before repeating the motions, slower.

She raises an eyebrow. "Are yous tryin' to say what I _think_ yous tryin' to say? 'Cuz I don' feel like it right now, an' on top o' that, I'm with _Touji_ if ya don't remember."

He blinks at her, a little impressed by how much his friend influenced one of her personalities, before realizing that the tone he's hearing in her voice is kind of offended. Then he takes a moment to think... _wait, what... oh. No. NO._ He shakes his head harder, almost hard enough to make his glasses go flying off. With an actual glare, he repeats the motions once more, in a different order. _Point 'you', point over shoulder, 'your' eyes, point over shoulder. Point at self, point the other way, hand-eyes, hand-blink. Spin slowly._

"Oh, you're gonna help me look for him?"

He finally nods.

"Why didn't ya just say so," she says, exasperated, as she rubs her face into her hand.

He looks around as if someone else could be listening (once more, 'as if') before leaning closer, gesturing for her to come closer as well... and shrugging.

"You're an idiot. You know that right?"

Kensuke pinches his own cheeks and sticks his tongue out at her, after backing up and pushing his glasses up once more.

"Uh-huh. So, how will we know when one of us finds him?" She asks this, partially to annoy him and partially actually wondering. "I mean, I can yell to let you know if I find him first, but what are _you_ gonna do?"

The boy makes a show of thinking hard for a minute before somehow pantomiming knocking himself out in a fight, dragging his own unconscious body to where they were standing, and... sitting on himself. And waiting.

"... I'm sorry, are you going to knock _him_ out or...?"

He shakes his head, scribbles something down on a piece of paper he had in his pocket, and shows her what's on it. He then tucks the paper into his shirt, and mimes hitting himself again.

"... This is possibly the _stupidest_... no, this _is_ the stupidest plan I have ever heard, and you still have yet to say anything," Hikari sighs, shaking her head. "Sometimes I really worry about you, 'Suke. I really do."

_-(O\_/O)-_

_._

_._

_._

**The Void, aka Angel 12, Leliel, bka 'The Dirac Sea'**

"Oi… hey, Asuka? Psssst, Asuka. Asuka? Asuka. Hey—"

"I can hear you just fine from here, so quit whispering, Third."

"Asuka? Is that you?"

"Who else would it be?"

"… No one."

"You paused there. Why did you pause? And why are you still whispering?"

"No reason."

"And_ that_ was too fast. What are you-"

"Soooo~o, I was like, you know, _thinking_," Shinji interrupts her. She would have pouted or punched him right then if she could have, but right then she couldn't see her hand in front of her face, so that probably wouldn't be the best idea. They had been kind of walking/floating along for the past couple of minutes, and to her knowledge, neither of them had any idea of what was going on. Still, she makes a mental note to hit him in the face later. If there was a later. "You always call me 'Third' because I'm the Third Child, right? Just like you're the Second and Ayanami was the First?"

"That, and it takes longer to call you 'baka-Shinji' all the time, yeah," she finds herself replying. "Why?"

"Well, since that's counting who was born when after _Second_ Impact, and we were the first two to be 'reborn' after _Third_ Impact, I was thinking… since you came back first and Rei's kind of… you know, dead right now, doesn't that make _you_ the First and me the Second?"

"That… that's kind of confusing, isn't it? I mean, I'm not complaining about being 'First'…"

"Somehow I knew you'd pick up on that," he sighs.

"_But_, if that's how things work, then won't that ranking apply to everyone that comes back from being piss?"

"Ummm… piss? Really, Asuka?"

"LCL, lifeblood, whatever. It looks like an ocean of piss, and it doesn't smell much better."

"The ocean we came from, too? The ocean that you've been bathing in with your plug-suit for the last two weeks while we tried not to go insane from near solitude? That ocean?"

"Point. Lifeblood it is. Still, it's only a little less troublesome to call you 'Second'… and won't that ranking thing…?"

"I don't think anyone else will care much beyond 'Tenth,' and we've already got First through Fifth taken. I wouldn't worry about it. Much."

"How much would you worry about it," Asuka asks slowly. It was more out of precaution than actual boredom. When _Shinji_, stupid _Shinji_, says that he wouldn't worry about something… it was usually a good idea to move away very quickly. Why? Things would probably get very bad, very quickly.

"About as much as monsters worry about Chuck Norris giving them a coupon for free roundhouse-kicks for Christmas," he mumbles quickly.

"What?"

"A little bit, but not much these days. Hey, does that look like daylight to you?"

"Wha—oh. Ow. Kinda hurts looking straight at it, Second. Warn me next time, would you?"

"Mmmmm… I'ma gonna check it out." She sees a shape forming in the light. A see-through hand, wrist, arm- ewww, she could see the insides- shoulder, head… it reminds her of watching one of those horror movies that Misato likes, but in rewind-

"Hey, hold on." It's at about this point that Asuka realizes what's happening. So when she sees his other arm forming, she remembers to reach out and—

*ll*-thekeyispersistence-*ll*

.

.

.

******2004 AD, T + 4 Years Second Impact**

It is with bags under her eyes and a suitcase clutched in her arms that one Naoko Akagi enters Terminal Dogma. Well, she also brings a heaving chest and wild eyes, at a combination with age and choice of clothing where it _would_ count as fanservice but for the lack of sexy music, but… well, that observation was just included anyway, so quit yer bitchin'. Besides, she doesn't quite 'enter' as much as 'kick through the metal double-doors with her bare feet.'

What can be said? These were the _junior_ days of NERV, when everything wasn't automated and controlled by The Three Wise (AI) Guys. Speaking of which, eh-_hack-hack-_hem…

"The MAGI have almost completed construction and Yui's in the final stages of programming EVA Unit-01," the brunette mutters into her SDAT, breaths evening as she runs one hand through her hair and stalks around a desk. "Meanwhile, the mobile capabilities of Tokyo-3 are also nearing completion, with the entirety of the blocks, A through C, ready for emergency. Now, if only we could figure out the same for the hospitals and schools, I think we would be... royally _screwed_." A long-suffered sigh, and her pacing halts when she sits in one of those comfy rolling/spinning computer chairs.

"Oddly enough, I get the feeling that one, if not all, of Subjects 1 through 10 have completed base physical development. I'm actually afraid to check, and up until a few minutes ago, I thought I knew why. Is it just that I want to be needed, and having so many projects reach their end so suddenly makes me uneasy about...?" The woman trails off in thought of her daughter, her boss, her partner, the boy, and any relationships in between. "I don't know, maybe I'm just being paranoid... but for some reason... I can't help these feelings.

"As a scientist, I know that there are times I should trust what I feel and not what I know. As any kind of sister, I know that what I've done is disrespectful, yet I feel that it had to be done. As a mother, I know that I have to at least _try_ to fix things with my daughter before I leave this world. Is this why I've done something so... stupid?" Naoko sighs, taking a deep, shaky breath before letting it out again. "I... I've taken DNA samples, straight from Lilith, and in testing them for similarity against an associates' DNA... I may have unintentionally brought forth a new life-form. A life-form that shows signs of life, and yet, no essential essence... no _soul_. In my research, I cloned this life-form -too risky to take more from Lilith's body or my colleagues- and now have 10 experimental subjects... I needed a control group, but it's spread beyond my reach now...

"Recently, I've finished constructing a machine that should allow actual _construction_ of a substitute soul, which should be compatible with... with any one of Subjects 1 through 10. All that is required, it would seem, is to copy another 'soul,' so it can be inserted into the body... why am I going over this now? I mean, Yui _said_ she was sure about the Contact Experiment... Of course, she's been sure about it the _last_ dozen times she's tried, but there's been no reaction yet... I've tried to warn her about what could happen, every time, so now all I can do is... all I can do is hope she fails again. Then there won't be any need for what I..."

Naoko closes her eyes, wiping her mouth. She felt sick. What was she doing? What could she do? What had she _done_? She had _cloned her best friend_ with an _Angel'_s DNA. This, even in the name of science, was not... there was no excuse for this, no forgiveness. And leaving her so-called 'best friend' to die in trying to tame an Evangelion? What... what kind of friend would do something like this? If anyone ever knew... no, she would most probably die before anyone found out about what she'd done here. Let alone that person be her own _daughter_...

She turns off the SDAT recorder as she presses a panel under her desk, shivering as one entire section of a wall slides down suddenly. It shouldn't have been possible to hide ten test tubes and a single, large life-support system in one of the 'most secure places on Earth,' as the JSSDF had called it. Nor should it have been doable by a single woman such as herself. Not only should it not have been possible, it shouldn't have been able to operate stably for as long as it had.

So was the problem of mortal men, women, and their shifty eyes. Sad how they could miss something so large, and right in front of them, too. And to think, whenever she'd gotten bored on days before she'd come down here to open and close the panel in five-second timeframes, just to see who'd notice...

This is exactly the situation she is in, giggling madly when the panel would freeze halfway up, when a black hole opens in midair behind her...

"… Well, _shit_." She hears a voice. She considers the possibilities implied in 0.5 seconds... skips to the most likely one. Someone is nearby. Most likely someone that should not be there, as she had heard no one enter the room since her own entrance, and there was certainly no one else there before she arrived; everyone was hanging around Central Dogma, otherwise occupied.

... Wait. Someone who should not be there. _'Danger, Akagi, danger!'_

And so one of the founding members of GEHIRN spins around, a look of pure surprise written across her features as she takes a mouthful of pink, plug-suit-clad crotch to the face.

-[-]-

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**Eva Unit 01's Innards, Cage 01**

"Well, this is rather convenient," Yui Ikari breathes, opening the control panel between her legs and pulling up the lever. Before the LCL level has even dropped below her waist, she has the belts across her chest and waist undone, and is bracing herself against the hatch as she catches her breath. _Great timing for somebody to screw up, isn't it? I really __was__ about to have an anxiety attack in here, wasn't I? Shit… she was __right__. F_ing-_

Less than two minutes later, it is Commander Ikari stalking across the bridge, still in her plug-suit and wiping LCL out of her hair with a towel as her husband trails behind, that says what everyone in the control room is thinking.

"Soooo~o, obviously something's gone wrong somewhere. Can I get a status report?" No one mistook the lilt in her voice for shaking. Nor did they mistake the tone in her words as arrogance. When she'd taken her position as Commander, a little over two years ago now, the woman had flat-out told them that while she didn't 'know' tech-speak, she would do her best to make sure she was understood. She said it with a smile and blush, so it was believable.

Those of her family and close friends, on the other hand, knew otherwise. Yui Ikari knew what she was saying, and when to say what. She just liked seeing people squirm trying not to talk back.

"The MAGI has self-activated and detected a number of unauthorized organisms down in Terminal Dogma," Shigure Aoba, a man Yui had long-since subconsciously nicknamed 'Minion A,' calls out. "No visual or audio on the subjects, since we don't have any kind of feed set up inside yet, but besides that… well…"

"Yes?" As much as she actually didn't have time for this, currently there was a threat to her program (empire), and her people (minions) weren't telling her something. And that 'something' might be important.

In another time, yet the same place in general, Makoto Hyuga would be freaking out, watching the top senior officer in his chain of command be eaten by a big-ass war machine from the inside while they each sat there, altogether powerless to do anything about it. In this time… well, he's still freaking out, but for a relatively different reason.

"Ocrapocrapocrapocrapocrapcrap_craaaap_," he mutters, fingers flashing and back-stepping across the keyboard in a flurry of movement and intensity normally not seen from the man. "There's a… a… this _thing_ in the other _thing_ and nononono_ come on!_"

On a calmer day, and possibly more colorful swearing involved, Aoba would have instinctively known that Hyuga was getting owned on _Cosmic Warcraft_, an online MMORPG he'd told the younger man about a few months ago. As it is, he's still one of the few that don't bother to look up; he too is busy with the task at hand. On the other hand, he's also currently a little more coherent than Hyuga.

"Ma'am, it looks like the MAGI had some kind of worm or virus programmed into the terminal, set to go off with the start-up and…" He bangs his knee into the CPU. "And it's trying to do… something."

"Something like…?" She doesn't count on a reply from her minions, instead turning to her husband at this point. Her poor, currently useless husband who can do nothing more than shrug as little Shinji stares at the flashing lights from behind his leg.

[^sparklies^]

**WARn~ING!. WarNINNNG?**

**BLU-RE-ORA- Unknown Pattern Detected? /run_broken(dot)exe/FAIL**

**1101001st ANG3L? Unconfirmed/identify_urself_(dot)iso/WTFRU**

**Action Taken: InCaseThisDayEverComes/ICTDEC:/run_lock-down(dot)exe/CLINK-CLINK**

((TTYTT))

**.**

**.**

**.  
**

**Terminal Dogma**

It is a compromising position that Asuka finds herself in as lights flash overhead and a broken tinny voice scratches through the speakers. She blinks. Maybe she's dreaming, or having a nightmare? Perhaps she was finally hallucinating from hunger. Blinks again. Nope. Still there.

"Hmmm… Second?" She finally asks.

"Yes, Asuka?"

"Why do these alarms sound very familiar?"

"Probably because they sound just like the ones NERV used to have."

"Hmm. And why would they be going off?"

"They usually go off during an Angel attack, when NERV is being invaded, or it's April Fools' Day. As I'd rather not consider the first two, I'd go with that last one."

"Okay. Shinji?" She calls again, not waiting for an answer. "Why is there a middle-aged woman that looks a little like Ritsuko-san between my legs?"

"There is a strong possibility that you landed on her face when you left the portal. As to why she might look like Ritsuko-san, I don't know."

She clicks her tongue. "I _thought_ something felt weird. Is she dead?"

"I believe the proper term is 'unconscious,' but I can't quite tell from this angle."

"Shinji? Second?"

"Yes, Asuka?"

"Where are you?"

"Judging from the proximity of your voice… behind you, I guess."

"You guess?"

"I'm a little more focused on the bare foot crammed into my crotch…"

"You _pervert_," she snaps automatically.

"Seriously? First. To my knowledge, it is not my fault that the fate of my unborn children rests on the foot of someone I don't know, and whom you may have just killed by accident. Speaking of which, I take it that you're still sitting on her face."

"This is officially the _one_ conversation I _never_ expected to have with you."

"Please, get up already. While the risk of never having kids is a little worrying, I'd rather we were elsewhere when the guys with guns come to shut off that alarm. I _really_ don't feel like dying today."

(^_^)

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**2017 AD, T + 15 Days Third Impact**

"Maya-san? Not that I don't like gardening or anything, but are we done yet?" Suzuhara Touji is nervous, that much he can admit to himself. About what is obvious as he runs his fingers over his abs under his shirt; yeah, he can still feel the edge of his Core just beneath the skin. It's not as if it could have just _disappeared_ in the week since he'd first discovered it.

"I guess so, Touji-kun," the woman pouts at the still-mulchy field. For all of either of their efforts, the 'garden' still looked nothing like what Kaji-san had down within his first week of suspension at NERV. Disregarding the thought (memories of those days never went anywhere), Ibuki Maya claps her gloved hands together before stretching. "Oh, I almost forgot! You wanted to talk about something before, right?"

"Yeah," he nods. "Do you think we turned into Angels when we came back?"

She doesn't ask him what he means by that, or where the question comes from. She knows. She had returned only a few days before he had, and had seen her own in the back of her throat when she'd stopped screaming for a second to find a toothbrush, toothpaste, and a mirror. Then she'd started screaming again for a little while.

From the self-administered psych analysis she went over later, it was probably just shock, as after she finally got done she felt a _lot_ better. From the looks Pilots—no, Shinji and Asuka had given her at the time, they had been worried. But that was wrong, wasn't it? Whether or not they had dealt with situations like this before, she was the elder in their situation, so shouldn't she have been the one worried for them?

Hence the gardening, somehow. It seemed to help relieve the stress; realizing that not only were you clinically dead for an undeterminable amount of time, but you are now one of the few living things left on the planet can take a lot out of you. In retrospect, it probably wasn't the best idea to virtually go hermit on them like that, even if she did drop by daily bearing five-minute-food as a peace offering. Not much she could do about that now.

Then again, if realizing that they each now had a Core to themselves was nearly that traumatizing for her, she could only imagine what the others, younger than her, were going through. So she answers his question with a question.

"Do you suddenly have the urge to slaughter the human race?" Maya is unsure whether she is disturbed or proud that he actually considers it instead of being shocked by the question.

"Nah, I don't think so," he shakes his head, laid back with arms folded on the ground. "But that _might_ be 'cause there ain't anybody fully human _left_ in the world. And then there's the part where I'm actually worried about it. Maybe I just can't tell it's there?"

She decides to go with 'proud.' She doesn't know or care why.

"Guess that's true," she hums before puffing her cheeks out and stretching her legs straight out on the ground. "Do you suddenly want to physically reunite with or kill a parental figure that spawned you?"

"Nope. Dead or not, I don't think the feeling's there."

"Hmmm," she considers. _Somebody sounds morbidly depressed_. "Say, what color were the Angel Cores before?"

Touji frowns in thought. "Didn't y'all use to call 'em S2 engines or was it… red. They were red."

"And what color are ours?" She smiles lazily.

"I… 'Suke's is blue, but I haven't really _looked_ at anyone else's. I'd guess all o' ours are blue. You got one too?"

"Mmm-hmm," Maya smirks. In another time, another place, perhaps a completely separate dimension beyond the walls of this universe, _perhaps_ someone would complain that the woman known as Ibuki Maya doesn't act like this. However, this is _this_ dimension, and upon her induction and expulsion in Instrumentality, she decided that, if given another chance, her life would _not_ revolve solely around NERV and force her into student-sensei relationship fantasies. Therefore, in some roundabout way, she is now more expressive.

This one would f_ing roll with it were he you. Now, onwards!

"Huh," Touji states before –wait, now he has a strained look on his face. "We're not all gonna turn into giant monsters one day and try to eat each other, are we?"

"Kami, I hope not… nah, not likely."

"Good," he sighs. "The powers that come with it would be sweet, but I get the weirdest feeling that I'd be losing all the time."

She laughs, both with him and at him, knowing he was joking. It wasn't even that good of a joke! _Maybe sometimes,_ Maya thinks, _we all need to just laugh. Otherwise, we'd all go nuts, and then what?_ She doesn't know, and doesn't expect an answer.

She certainly doesn't expect Kesuke to come running into the large room, or to execute a move that looks suspiciously like 'The People's Elbow' above Touji's head.

(!&pretzel%!)

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**2004, Terminal Dogma**

"Aaaand you've officially saved her life. Also, I never knew that you know CPR, Shinji!"

"When the dangers of the world consist of 'Death by Angel,' 'Death by Eva,' guns and turning into goo… well, no one's gonna be impressed by _that_," he sighs as he makes sure the woman they would call NoName –they hadn't been able to find a ID card on her- is breathing before moving to pick her up off the floor.

On a side-note, he is thankful that in the few minutes before, Asuka had managed to get off the woman's face without neutering him, even if that situation had ended up with him on the floor and NoName giving him an accidental back-of-the-head head-butt, which assured him that she was unconscious and gave him a headache. Which was around the time that it was made clear; _she wasn't breathing_.

Now, less than two minutes later he is surprised by how light the woman seems to be, not expecting help from Asuka and in turn, not receiving any.

"I know a few people that tend to forget how to breathe when kissing that might appreciate it," she coughs from atop the desk.

"I only know two people who might be like that, and not counting you, the other one is _dead_, so no help there," he shrugs.

"I figure you mean Ayanami. Why," she asks, kicking her legs back and forth and watching him balance NoName in the rolling chair again.

"She was always a 'maybe.' You know what they say about the quiet ones…"

"As I recall, you used to be pretty quiet yourself. What the hell happened with that?"

"You and ending the world."

"Oh yeah… remind me, why'd you decide to let people come back if they felt like it?" _'Not that I don't appreciate it or anything, but seriously. Wishing for everybody to die and then passively giving them a choice to stay or come back is kind of weird… like somebody planned it.'_

It came out as a casual question. Maybe _too_ casual. Shinji remembers the days when something like that should have counted as 'shameless prying,' and sighs, lips quirking as NoName's head flops down and she begins to snore. He pushes her head back up.

"I remembered that, even though I was probably pretty close at that point, I'm not God."

Asuka blinks, beginning to rock back and forth with her legs. _'That's freakin' __deep__. When did the Second become such a- wait. That sounds too simple.'_

"Elaborate," she orders out loud, and he laughs a little, leaning back on the desk next to her.

"I mean, on one hand, I'm not so scared of man's superior _firepower_ that I have to hide up in Heaven and say 'obey me' all the time."

Asuka sweat-drops. _'Is he… is he trying to make a joke?'_ "Okay, and on the other hand?"

"On the other hand… well, peace gets boring sooner or later. For everyone. It's not a smart move to leave everybody in the world in a situation where they're bound to get so… _bleh_. It's actually more fun this way! If you hurt because of others, then you can feel good because of others too! Complementation is 'no consequence for anything, but hey, you'll either live out your wildest fantasies or get along with _everyone_!' _That_ is the worst kind of _suck_ I can imagine." He laughs again, a peaceful look on his face.

The redhead rolls her eyes. _'Not so deep when you look at it like that. Maybe more than he needs to bother thinking about, but then again, maybe it's better this way?'_

"Baaaka," she punches him in the shoulder suddenly, and raising an eyebrow when he falls over easily. "If that's how you see things, why kill everybody off in the first place?"

"That… is a _really_ good question." He nods sagely, ignoring her face-palm. "Well, besides being really depressed when Lilith-Rei asked me to 'make a wish,' I mean, didn't we all kind of need a 'reset button' anyway? Everybody was going nuts and killing each other… kinda like little boys and girls go around acting mad at each other, except with actual guns and bombs and shit like that.

"And what is it that parents do when stuff like that happens with their kids?"

"Tell each other that 'those two are going to make beautiful children with high blood-pressure for me one day'?" Now it was Asuka's turn to ignore his face-palm and groan as he sits on the ground. "Sure, they don't say it like _that_, but it's implied that boys 'like' the girls that they're mean to and vice versa. And all parents go crazy about wanting grandkids sooner or later."

"I guess that _is_ true," he sighs. "Thank God _Dad_ never got like that. I mean… no. Just no. Forget I said anything."

"Never say that again, then, and you've got a deal," Asuka shivers. Shinji coughs into his hand.

"Right then. Moving on… right, kids, mean girls, parents. Different situation. Okay then, what do parents do when it's two boys or two girls picking at each other, and they _know_ it's not 'because they like each other'?"

"… Put them in time-out?" Asuka tries.

"Something like that, according to some old religion over where the Americas used to be. And it worked to calm them down, like, one out of two times."

"What used to happen the other 'one out of two times'?"

"Well… you remember that one class play by Shakespeare?"

"What, Romeo and Juliet?" Shinji nods. "Some things were just _not_ meant to be translated… wait, what does that have to do with—"

"Something like what's supposed to have happened _before_ the story," he says evasively.

"Two people have a blood-feud where they're always trying to kill each other?"

"Yup."

"Kinda like what we usually have?"

"With more or less sexual tension and more pointless bloodlust, I think so."

"Huh… Second?"

"Yes, Asuka?"

"How long have we been down here?"

"I… I don't know." There's an actual confused look on his face as he scratches his head and grabs the desk for support to get up. "Asuka?"

"What?"

"Is that a button between your legs or am I seeing things?" She stares at him, one eye twitching as she starts to get up and slap the _shit _out of him… blinks. Wiggles in her seat. Finally looks down.

"… Huh. Looks like there's some kind of… hidden panel… between my legs. No, guess you're not seeing things. Dammit."

"What do you think it _does_?" She can hear the sheer _wonder_ in his voice and for a second, thinks he might be a little too eager to stick his hand _'don't you __dare__ finish that thought.'_

Asuka huffs, stands up, and turns to face him. He's still staring at the button, an intense look in his eyes. _'Maybe I preferred it when I thought he was perving on me.'_

"Why don't we find out?" She asks, pressing the—

'_Click!'_

'_FWOOO-'_

"What. The _Hell_. Is _this_?"


	3. Doing the TimeWarp

_Geh, I said it on the profile, not that anybody notices or cares; this one is going up TONIGHT. And this won't be a rant as long as the other one, if it even makes it up. So let's do this. This one is a little confusing with the mini-timeskip (too early? I'm stressed right now, so just deal with it), and backpedal over the dead dog, but stick it out and if you're still confused, tell us which part you need explained in your review. Anyway, the real rant; we need a set day for updates, because as it turns out, this 'major' thing isn't working too well for me. How's every other Saturday sound to you guys? Anyway, here's number 3.  
And remember; all swears are automatically better with 'nuggets' at the end._

Stupid Shinji and Asuka Save the World  
Chapter 3: Doing the TimeWarp, in Which Nothing Gets Explained

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For all intents and purposes involved, if the Children of the future were seeking to 'save the future' as the phrase goes, the job's integrity is… well, currently, its honorability is at stake. Questionable, at best, at this point in time. This is, of course, disregarding the part where they had no idea what they were doing, and the part where they knew not exactly what time they were in, or had been inhabiting.

If all they were looking to do was _change_ the future, on the other hand, they had already succeeded. Four stars, over the rainbow decoration medals, at least eight of the whole nine yards. Whether these changes were for better or worse remained to be seen, and the impact of such, more demanded.

Still, thus far, it could be said that they haven't done much, actively, in the way of helping matters.

For instance, all they had actually _done_ so far is infiltrate the lowest -therefore most secure- level of NERV, 'acquire' a rather important hostage, and on an extremely unintentional note, activated the 3-part AI that, in another time, would have played its own part in the overall scheme of things.

In the same place (yet not), and same time (yet not), the main problem that decomposes humanity's hope stems from one source, constructed of two parts. Supreme Commander Ikari and her 'death by heavy metal' act was the figurative fall that broke open the first can of worms tied to the whole operation; thus beginning NERV's travels on the roads of Hell.

Once upon a time, she steps into her masterpiece Unit 01, confident that _this_ time, it would activate correctly. Once upon a time on this day, Unit 01 _did_ activate, and the MAGI classified the metal monster, based on Lilith, as a 'problem'. Consequentially, the supercomputer 'goofed' and made a sudden, unexpected move to 'correct' such measures, provoking the Eva Test-Type to have something akin to a 'panic attack'.

Since Commander Ikari was also panicking at the time, the sync ratio skyrocketed to unprecedented levels, heaping more on the plate of 'not helping matters.'

Now comes the biology lesson; this is one of the first Evangelions constructed using organic material based on human and Angel physiology, said Angel being Lilith. As it is the _only_ Eva that would ever be based on Lilith, it is one of a kind. Unfortunately this means that Eva Unit 01 has a properly functional, if restrained, nervous system, which lead to the understanding much later on that Unit 01 was, in fact, a living being. While that proves nothing as all Evangelions were living beings from the start, Unit 01 was particularly… psychotic.

Drop that for a moment. Living beings each have their own responses to stimuli; reaction to an action; all living beings know fear. All living beings have a reaction to the 'feeling' of fear. Yes, even Angels. And while human and Angel DNA would, later on, prove to have really close relations, they have somewhat different ways of dealing with things.

To point a few of those difference out; when humans get frustrated, they blow off steam. When Angels get frustrated, they blow shit up. In the same way, they have different ways of dealing with more intense stress-related situations; humans breathe into a paper bag or go 'ham' on punching bags. Angels destroy everything that dares to look at it wrong.

Lilith, in particular, goes bat-shit _nuts_. The only being in existence, at that time, who knew this (having survived Lilith's wrath once upon a time) was named 'ADAM,' and was busy hiding in Antarctica for the duration of his recovery.

Ahem.

Thus Unit 01 has its own unique response; eating anything weaker, preferably smaller and within reach. On this day, once upon a time, one Mrs. Ikari was within reach, becoming the first person to ever experience the birthing process in reverse.

However, skipping the eventual consequences as everyone already knows them well, this does not happen on the ascertained day. Balthasar-2, the MAGI unit based on Naoko Akagi as a Mother, does not 'squee' at the irony involved in a Lilim entering a machine based on Lilith as her own spawn watches, thereby alerting the other units as to what was taking place. Casper-3, the MAGI unit based on Dr. Akagi as a Scientist, does not claim 'blasphemy' and initiate lockdown of NERV HQ, to protect the humans within from the 'monstrosity' that had awakened. Melchior-1, the MAGI unit based on Ms. Akagi as a Woman, does not e-scream 'you _bitch_' as she jump-starts Unit 01's Berserker State, just to screw with Yui's head.

None of that happens. _Instead_, Balthasar detects the main host –who's cooperation in their completion was rather mandatory- in physical duress in the depths of the base, and shrieks "Oh-Em-Geeee!" _Instead_, Casper analyzes the threat as best it can without visual aid and gets feedback from unidentified power organs, and initiates a lock-down to block interference with the scan. _Instead_, Melchior… well, AI number 1 keeps doing research on the human libido and 'how to create AI children' on the net, like she'd been doing idly for the last half a day. The other two had everything else under control, after all.

_Instead_, MAGI 1.0 goes online a full three minutes before Dr. Ikari would have reached absolute borderline, panicked as her war machine went nuts, and reached a sync rate above 400 percent as she was partially absorbed. That is, if 'partially' came to mean that there were small 'parts' of her littering the cockpit of the entry plug. 'Shreds' if you don't particularly feel like eating today.

No, _instead_ she leaps from the entry plug, fitting a somersault into her exit, before landing flat on her black-and-yellow plugsuit-clad ass on the catwalk as the klaxon alarms echo through the cage, overhead and around her. Twenty seconds later, her husband is by her side, helping her up, while her son is handing her a towel that he'd picked up somewhere between there and the control room. And less than a full minute later, she stalks into said control room with no idea what is going on.

Anyway, thanks to the early activation, _that_ can of 'Holy S_' falls into the line of sight of a lasor beam, evaporating into nothing more than a bad aftertaste and slight déjà vu. In other words, crisis averted.

Dr. Akagi, on the other hand, was still a work in progress at that point. See, her extended exposure to the First/Second Angel had already wreaked a small havoc on her puny human grey matter, kicking the crap out of her mental stability and covering the result with superior acting skillz. For proof of such instability, refer to the MAGI. Why else would she have created artificial humans based on a colleague, or allowed said colleague to repeatedly step into a metal demon based on man's worst enemy?

T^T

_For SCIENCE!_

_And great JUSTICE!_

_Silence, both of you! It was for babies!_

_Y^Y_

On the downward spiral she'd fallen into, ever since they'd gotten her a real office set up in Terminal Dogma, things would have gone from 'bad' to 'taking a piss into a fan.' Yes, ha ha, that's actually worse and considerably harder to do than flinging feces into an air-generating device.

See, it had actually become _her_ idea, in another time, to suggest using the mothers of children in Tokyo-3 (those children being aged four or younger) as sync souls for Project Eva. This is before the amazing Maxwell House soul filters were heard of in Tokyo-3, so understandably, some things went places that they shouldn't have. As a result, over 75 percent of the abducted mothers failed absorption quite messily, but hey; what was science without costly collateral damage and traumatic failure, anyway?

T^T

_Told ya so._

_Shaddup!_

_Y^Y_

After that fustercluck, she would move on to heavier subjects; the seduction of the suddenly-promoted-and-widowed Supreme Commander of NERV being her main focus. Somewhere in there, she commits suicide. More on that later. Right now, we shall discuss the amazing amount of 'what the f_' that takes place shortly afterward.

Yes, while she shouldn't have been capable of screwing anything else up from the grave, somehow she does, er, did. One Ritsuko Akagi, the one with the 'natural' blond hair who was be on her way back to college at the time, would be shocked and depressed by all the statements implied in the message that her mother had officially joined the mile-high club.

...What? No, that's wrong. She _died_. By _suicide_. What's the difference? You can't join that club when you're dead! … What is _wrong_ with your _brain_? Sure it's just as mind-screwy to hear some shit like that, but-

Anyhoo. In this state she would walk in on her new friend Katsuragi and playful 'buddy' Kaji doing a spectacularly lewd impression of Siamese twin sex: "Hmm, we seem to be joined at the hip, with me behind you. Here, you pull that way, I'll pull this way… Oh! That didn't work, and we seem to be even more stuck, but that felt good. Let's try again, pulling harder! Giggidy!"

_That_ she had known would happen eventually. She had even guessed she would walk in on it one day. The timing was simply bad. Through time and circumstance, the sack of emotional stress contracted, stretched, and festered, eventually spurting all over everything near the end. Stick your mind in the gutter if it makes better sense like that.

Right. This does not happen.

Instead, as Naoko meditates and mulls over past actions and deeds, she is, um, _accosted _by… a special circumstance. A circumstance named Asuka Langley Soryu, Second Child of Second Impact, First Child of the Apocalypse, and Teenage Time-Traveler.

In her landing, down in the office of Terminal Dogma, Ms. Sohryu happens to take temporary command of Naoko Akagi's breathing apparatus, or rather, her nose. In taking command, she restricts all privileges and rights involved, sending Ms. Akagi into a rather dangerous state of consciousness, or rather, the loss thereof. In this state, Ms. Akagi injures her cranial cavity on the dense chunk of miracle moon-rock known as Shinji's Skull.

Amend that; two special circumstances.

In this injury, her frontal lobe is... shifted. Leaving the fact for now; her lack of consciousness was then realized and remedied, somewhat. Whereas she was unconscious and not breathing before, she was still unconscious, but with air moving through her lungs now. Without _any_ outside help. Say, howsabout we move on to the implied long-term effects now, to avoid any more awkwardness? Shall we?

Because of this... occurrence, many things were fixed, while at the same time, broken. For a while thereafter, Naoko would experience frequent loss of memory; where she was, what she was doing there, and why she was talking into an SDAT player. On the other hand, her split-personality disorder was somewhat... reigned in.

Once upon a time, she would have despaired in the realization that she'd sent her bestest (not only) buddy to her deadly dying death by method of ingestion. Shortly afterward, she would happily realize; waitaminute! I have clones of my best friend, and probably enough brain matter of hers to shape a personality or soul for one of them! And if there's not enough (where'd I get this stuff from, anyway?), I can probably shape her personality _off my own memories_!

As many saw in the years that followed, in the form of Rei Ayanami, that last part was a bad idea in and of itself. Anyway, after the fact, she came to a stoned 'wow' conclusion a few months after that idea.

"Hmmm... on the one hand, Yui was rather cruel in leaving a faithful man and kid behind... on the other hand, her man sent the kid off, and it would be disrespectful of her memory to not comfort the Commander myself!"

Again, bad idea. This train of thought in pursuing one Gendo Ikari only served to drive him crazy faster than the loss of his wife was already doing so, make her strangle the mini-Angel (ha, a pun!) she had brought into the world, and later, her committing suicide. _After_ making a damn fool out of herself and not-quite-subtly eviscerating herself from her own daughter, as was pointed out above.

As things end up _here_, she is discovered in Terminal Dogma almost an hour after being rendered unconscious the first time, 30 minutes after being awakened to answer 'how does that brain-scanner soul-transfer thingy over there work?,' and 22 minutes after seeing the process to completion in a sleepwalking state, handing over her lab coat, and being knocked out again, the method the second time around being purely blunt force trauma to the head.

Specifically, her forehead. And for some strange reason, the palm of one of her hands is numb when she reawakens. Needless to say, she remembers none of the above, or the reason behind not remembering. Running on coffee for two days straight, taking a soft one to the face, and _then_ taking a hit to the head tends to make people really sleepy, and prone to memory loss.

So if we went into the reason behind her hand being numb now, that would be contradictory.

Instead, let us skip to the part where the MAGI has released NERV's time-out, no longer detecting the strange technicolor pattern, and Shigeru Aoba tries to poke his head out of the elevator shaft, a Beretta 90 FS in one hand, and a Smith Wesson M&P 15 semiautomatic in the other.

The only acknowledgment that his choice in firearms gets is that everybody was lucky he left the safety on. Really, it's rather difficult to peer around the edge of an elevator door when he is the one pressed up against said door, and the elevator was holding more fully-grown adults and children than was actually _safe_.

Especially when the single child within was a three-year-old Shinji Ikari.

Skipping the convenient/useless gag scene; a number of Section 2 agents has already arrived at the scene, smart, daring, and childish enough to take the garbage chute one at a time instead, and getting out of the incinerator with minimal casualties before making their way to the outer-outer hall of Terminal Dogma.

As one, each of these agents facepalms as NERV technicians with guns tumble out of the elevator, and the Supreme Commander steps out over the mess, helping her Sub-Commander out as she passes. The two of them salute each other, and proceed to trail after their son, who has already taken off for the doors to the office-space.

Skip again, to after the agents needlessly storm the office, wake up a very confused doctor and one nervous agent nicknamed 'Shocky' from then on fires his taser… yeah, skip that part.

Upon questioning of who her assailant was and why there were nude prepubescent girls that seem to be clones of each other floating in tanks in the office, Naoko would note that she couldn't very well answer the second question, for she would start coughing violently every time she tried to speak and she would often be side-tracked by thoughts of pie. And, for the life of her, she could not remember.

On the other hand, she _did_ have a very detailed account on her attacker's profile, if nothing else. It reminded her of something she'd seen before. Something she should _really_ be able to place...

Later, after a specialist (Hyuuga/Minion B) was brought in to take a sketch, Yui would stare at the product, up to Naoko, and back to the picture, shaking her head for the next hour or so.

"We've been friends for a long time, girlfriend," she says slowly as she puts an arm around the older woman's shoulders, after officials have been dismissed and it is just the two of them in the office; Gendo is busy trying to keep Shinji from running around the tanks, so they didn't count as 'intelligent life,' and the security detail of Section 2 agents was outside, 'blending in'. "And in all our years together, this is turning into the weirdest thing that's happened to you by far."

Naoko, somewhere in the back of her mind, takes slight offense to this, whining that what happened when they first met in high school was more outrageous. In another dark corner, she wonders if a three-year-old boy should even be allowed near the equivalent of his half-sisters, let alone while they floated in tanks, inanimate and naked.

Those voices were crushed easily under curiosity.

"Give it to me straight, Yui. Who, or what, attacked me?"

"Well," their eyes meet, and the elder scientist realizes that she sees barely-contained laughter and worry in her friend's eyes. "You remember our college years, right? How you used to take 'enthusiastic walks' at night all the time, and scare people by hanging from the ceiling by your feet?"

"Fun days those were and always will be," the redhead nods, smiling fondly. "Especially when I wore skirts. And if I remember correctly, you came with me on some of those walks. What does that have to do with _this_?"

"Absolutely nothing," Yui deadpans. Naoko strangely fears the urge to facepalm, and disregards the notion. "I was trying to throw you off so you weren't caught off-guard by this, and so, are more likely to believe me."

"How does that even _work_, anyway? You seem to do that all the time."

"I will not reveal my secrets, but I will tell you this; you can't be completely surprised when you don't have a clue what's going on. Not being completely surprised leads to higher brain functions operating with less capacity for trial-and-error, and so, a tendency to believe the next thing you hear as opposed to public opinion."

"Huh. Right. I don't have a clue what's going on. Tell me already," Naoko says flatly, one eye twitching. Yui takes the hint, glancing at the sketch again. _'Why does Minion B pay so much attention to detail...?'_ She sighs, and retains a giggle by clearing her throat.

"Well, it's like this... apparently, you were rendered unconscious... by contact with a giant, alien-"

-.o.-

.

.

.

"Pussy~," Touji drawls, hands in his pockets and standing over the dazed, glasses-wearing boy on the ground. In the background, Maya looks on with shifty eyes as Kensuke raises his arm shakily, beckons the other boy closer… and flips him the bird.

"You came at me while I was already down, not even paying attention, and couldn't keep me there, 'Suke. You failed _hard_. _Fail_," Touji repeats, smirking and offering a helping hand up. "Good try, though."

She sees what's going to happen before it does, so is not surprised when he gets dragged down and a cloud resembling a tumbleweed rises around them. _'Boys'_ she thinks before narrowing her eyes. She has to concentrate; what just happened? Wasn't there something _off_ about it? If either of the teens had noticed or cared, they were good at hiding it. They had both been Pilot candidates, after all, and had either seen or experienced their fair share of 'weird.'

Still, she had to wonder… _'did they have such smooth reflexes to begin with, or was I imagining things?'_

It had started a short while ago. Aida had come charging into the miniature greenhouse, dirt flying behind him and mouth open in the most nonexistent battle-cry she had ever seen or heard; this was before he launched into a long jump a few feet away from them, obviously counting on his trajectory and velocity to guide his elbow to its target, which seemed to be Suzuhara's face. At this point, she had backed the hell up, literally and mentally.

Why Aida had initiated a fight between the two boys, she didn't know. Maybe he'd finally snapped. He'd seemed a little soft –fragile? - when he'd first emerged from the LCL Sea… but as that had been her first time meeting him, perhaps she'd gotten the wrong impression. Perhaps watching the fight itself would bring understanding?

On a side-note from that, Maya then came to the conclusion that having a bag of popcorn in-hand would help that understanding even more. When her brain agreed, time unfroze for her and movement continued.

Suzuhara rolled to the other side of the aisle, away from her, fully and effectively dodging injury while the other boy fully and effectively full-frontal face-planted. He then stuck out an arm to stop his own movement, one leg flicking up and over, into an axe-kick that might have hit Aida in the back. Might have, for Maya doesn't see or hear it hit before flicking away, and Aida's groan might have been from how hard his face hit the ground.

Whatever happened, in the next second Suzuhara was caught by a hand gripping his tracksuit-clad pants leg, the material holding and the force behind the motion carrying the skinnier boy over faster than he should have been able to move otherwise. In the second after that, Aida had snapped back up like a snake, shoulders back, hips forward, knees lightly skimming the dirt as the distance between them closes. One arm is already cocked back, ending in a fist rapid on the approach.

_"Gotcha,"_ she might have heard. How she might have heard such a whisper so clearly in the heat of the moment was a real mystery, as well as who said it. What came next... not so much.

The arm Touji was using to support himself disappears, aiming for Kensuke's gut. Instead it goes south... and into his shin.

And yes, that's right, we've not yet reached the nutshot phase. While that would have been hilarious, it's physically impossible for most humans to suddenly move the hand from holding most of their body weight off the ground to what passed for eye level at that point, let alone neck or chest. Be patient, young one.

Having one side of the bottom half of his body suddenly go inert did not agree with Kensuke's torso, which was still in motion. The result, as such, is something akin to a seahorse tripping in an underwater race, or rather, something that looked ridiculous and when considered, seemed impossible. Kensuke almost flies over Touji's body, which had hit the ground at this point. The cocked punch goes wild, skimming the back of the shorter boy's head instead of the nads, where he'd actually been aiming. One knee makes it into Touji's stomach by accident, but it has little force behind it at this point. It almost slides over to his chin as the punch forces Kensuke to turn, but by then the motion has flipped over onto his back.

It wasn't as much a 'compromising' position as much as an awkward, uncomfortable one. Kensuke is drawn halfway across his friends body, out of breath, on his back and face definitely smeared by dirt, glasses amazingly intact through it all; although that had to hurt, having them pressed against his face like that. Suzuhara is on his side, one arm bent and bracing against the ground, the other keeping his friend partially suspended over his own side, one leg just hanging out in midair for no reason, and staring straight ahead.

"'Suke?" He called.

"_Tsk-tsk-tsk nok-tsk-tsk_?" Aida clicked back, teeth showing and, supposedly, tongue flicking from roof to jaw behind them. Maya blinked, realizing that the boy had just clicked a message out in Morse code. She blinked again, noticing that the message translated as "_Ow?_"

Through his answer, Touji either understood it or didn't care what it meant. "Could you, you know, get off me?"

"_... Tsk-tsk-tsk nok-nok-nok-nok_." _'… Oh,'_ he clicked simply, attempting to jackknife into a sitting position twice before getting it right. Within seconds, they were both on their feet, facing in opposing directions and dusting themselves off quietly.

"'Suke?" Touji calls again.

"?" He didn't have time to click as the shorter boy took him by the shoulder, brought him down a bit, and brought their foreheads together hard enough to sound off sharply; Aida took major headbutt from Suzuhara, who was known to have a hard head but normally taking second place to Shinji. At the moment, however, he had first place, with Hikari then second, and Kensuke at third. Maya didn't bother ranking herself.

After Touji lets go and backs up, it doesn't take long for the taller boy to fall backwards, eyes crossed.

"_Pussy~,_" Touji drawled.

Here the instant-replay ran its course and Maya blinks, wondering just when Touji came to be sitting on Kensuke's back, Aida dazed on the ground again, with arms folded. Ah, the setbacks of having flashbacks when things were still going...

"That's _three_. Give up your mission now, soldier, or be destroyed!"

"_Tsk-tsk nok-nok nok-nok-nok-_" He stops clicking suddenly, what would have become "_Mission_" or "_M5"_ dying at his teeth as he suddenly sits up, shrugging Touji off effortlessly.

"Whaddaf_?" He is then ignored as the glasses-wearing boy sits up and gives him a blank look before patting down the front of his own shirt, reaching in and finding what he was looking for. A note.

"Heeeeee~ey." Then the note is ignored as Kensuke freezes, Touji and Maya turning to wonder just when Hikari had showed up by the other 'door' of the greenhouse. But the girl isn't looking their way, squinting into the distance with one hand shading her eyes and the other on her hips. "What's that?"

It is no question as to what she is referring to; it's kind of hard to miss a dark cloud the size of an Evangelion's fist hovering above the lake that was once Tokyo-3, especially when there wasn't a single other cloud in the sky.

Yes, this is disregarding the people camped out at in a modified garden at the base of a building almost a mile away. In their defense, they had been otherwise occupied up until this point. However, even if Hikari hadn't chosen that time to appear and say something, it probably wouldn't have changed the end result.

Each of them hear the crackling roar as large, red-and-white fists grip the edges of the 'cloud,' and a trilling moan as the cloud 'grows.' Each of them see, to some extent, the pale, horned figure that thrusts its head through the opening, the shoulder pylons following shortly, and a torso develop from thin air.

They are the only witnesses to the 'rebirth' of the unmanned Unit 04 as it tears its way out of the Dirac Sea, only to growl in confusion as it falls into the lake of LCL below it.

Kensuke is the only one that thinks '_Ah, so this is how the Evas were born?'_ Of course, nobody knows this as he doesn't bother asking out loud, nor do they share his sentiments.

And Suzuhara, having been the pilot of his own Eva at one point, recognizes the design and superior quality of this Evangelion next to Unit 03. His Eva, which happened to have been inhabited by an Angel at the time, and thus was destroyed. As such, he has only one thing to say, in a yell, as he takes off in the general direction of the Unit 04. And it echoes for miles in the mostly-silent world.

"Diiiiiiibs!"

+(=)+

.

.

.

**The Void**

"Pssst, Asuka?" Before, it had actually sounded pathetic, even for a whisper, to Asuka's ears. Now that 'whisper' sounds as a cannon, and she considers kicking out to shut Shinji up. She reconsiders shortly into imagining the effects, and snaps out a hand to cover his mouth instead.

"Second, you had better have a really good reason to talk right now. If this is just BS about how this was a bad idea, then shut up _now_ or _die._" In comparison, she hisses out her message, eyes narrowed in futile threat. He couldn't see how serious she was; they were in the darkness again, and either of them could only hope they were going the right way, back to their own time.

The sleeping little girl hanging from her neck like a monkey probably didn't care, as long as they were with her.

"I just wanted to ask, is she still asleep?" She can't tell if that's worry or concern she hears through his voice. Could be fear for all she knew. What right did he have to be scared? _She_ was the one holding—"I mean, I don't want her growing up to be scared of the dark or anything because of this. That probably wouldn't end well."

An image flashes through her mind –one of a red-eyed, blue-haired little girl wielding an AT-field and crushing anything that moved in the shadows at night. Unknowingly, her lips quirk up and the thought, and she wonders why an idea like that appeals to her.

"You're right, it probably wouldn't," is what she whispers back, however. "And yes, she's asleep. Why did you let me talk you into this?"

"You're very persuasive and I liked the idea. Try to bring up a 'Rei' that's not Rei, and who's mind is based on our memories? Yes, _brilliant_." She doesn't realize that it's sarcasm dripping off most of his words until the last part. She pouts, not realizing that she's doing it right, or at all.

"What, you didn't like my idea?" Shinji can _taste_ something in the air he's moving through. Unlike how things used to be with her, however, it doesn't taste bitter, or hateful. After a moment, he wonders _'what the hell, I'm tasting words now?'_ She continues. "Well, if it was _that bad_ you should have said something, you know?"

"No, no, it really sounded like a good idea… kind of," he admits, realizing that he may have hurt what fragile feelings she might have had. "But then, you think about it. You're Asuka. I'm Shinji. Think about what we've been through, respectively. _We're both pretty f_ed up in the head_. Now does it make sense to mentally put a _kid_ through everything we went through? On top of that, a super-powered kid that can _kick our asses?_"

Silence, for a moment, but for the sound of breathing. Then the 'click' is almost audible.

"Ahhh," Asuka breathes, wide-eyed. "Didn't think about that, nope."

"Didn't think you _did_ think about that," he mumbles.

"She _looked_ pretty happy when we woke her up. Doesn't that count for something?" She's not trying to defend her decision, honestly! Okay, maybe a little. "And she didn't hasn't screamed or done any weird stuff besides, uh…"

"Crawling up the wall," he finishes for her. "I know, I was there. And she probably hasn't screamed yet because she was too busy imprinting on you as 'Mommy' and me as 'God.' How messed up is that?"

"Well, both of us have mother issues, I think, so she probably would register me as her mother as fast as possible." She sounds proud, for the first time in a long time, and she knows it. She _feels_ proud, and has a reason to _be_ proud. "Still don't get why you get to be 'God.' Kind of weird."

"Like I said, 'how messed up is that?' All I can figure is, since she kind of recognizes me as blood-kin, but I also helped bring her to life… some weird brother-father complex?"

"That's f_ed up," she almost whistles, dumbstruck by the insanely simple, believable logic behind it. "Did you come up with that by yourself?"

"I honestly _don't know_. It's creepin' me out," he says, voice finally rising to almost-normal volume. "And does it seem a little brighter to you?" His voice doesn't sound so loud to her now, even if they were still keeping it low.

Obviously not low enough.

"_Why are we whispering?"_ A voice that actually does resemble a cannon rumbles from the darkness, and they both 'freeze,'; Shinji is the first to turn around, and notice the pair of glowing yellow eyes floating in the darkness.

He blinks as a giant metal hand comes up, confused and speechless. This seems very familiar, for some reason…

This reason cannot be explored for the time being, however, as in waving, the giant figure _might have _knocked him over. Or perhaps, accidentally taken hold of him. Hearing the sound of metal impacting flesh slightly, Asuka turns around, the little girl dangling from her back stirring as she looks up, into yellow eyes and at a giant purple hand.

"_Ooops."_ Came the voice again. _"Um, hi?"_

A scream. Due to the theory of cosmic irony, this is when their journey comes to an abrupt end in bright, shining light.

Asuka is still uncertain just who is screaming when she falls out of the void.

()

.

.

.

It is a surprisingly bright landscape the pilot of Unit 01 falls into. It's almost familiar. Leaning buildings and broken structures poke through the skyline, above a relatively small pit filled with water. Statues float through at a sluggish pace, near-nonexistent if focused on, with moss crawling up the base. A ring of natural land mass rises at the edges, shining with the glare reflected off the water; the sun is high in a grey and purple sky. It's the little impossibilities that stand out, though.

To name one, the whirlpools driving their spirals from the surface to the base of the lake at random spots. To name another, the lake is yellow -ah, no, red- wait, orange? The 'water' level is higher than it should be with so many eddies draining into the lakebed below, and when observed, how long they've been there is simply ridiculous.

Something else that stood out was the giant, untouched, surreal hole in the lake's surface, that takes up a small area above where a certain base was once located. The 'water' flows around it instead of into it, as if there is some invisible wall defending what lay within.

It was a beautiful, if warped, rendition of a sight. At any other time, Ikari Shinji might have ignored it if he didn't feel like being reprimanded by nature. At any other time other than those times, he would have ignored it due to the fact that he had other things to focus on.

At any other time, he would have realized that what he was looking at was the remains of Tokyo-3. This is not any other time.

Any other time, Shinji would not be falling through the air, him and his Eva having just been _eaten_ by the twelfth Angel a few hours ago. Any other time, he would not have been bored out of his skull during his confinement, at first actually worried about being eaten, then challenging the Angel to do it, then reflecting on the thus-far rather tedious/strange nature of his own life.

That boredom was slightly jolted by his sighting of actual other _people_ there, a few minutes before, and after following them for a while, he settled into the theory that he had finally started to hallucinate. Unfortunately, this 'realization' served to put his introvert nature on hold, and prompted him to go ahead and make new friends. If he was going to be insane, might as well get used to it.

Unfortunately, talking to the little people only served to send them into a panic; someone screamed shortly before he would have introduced himself as 'the Big Goddamn Hero' (how rude!), and his time inside of wherever he was ended.

Suddenly he was falling through the air in familiar yet unfamiliar surroundings, a scream still echoing through his head as he watched a girl with red hair [_impossible she wasn't there she couldn't be here but it looks like her where's her Eva?_] fall through the air with him, and a giant white hand exploding from the 'water,' followed by what appeared to be another Evangelion. And it looked _angry_.

It is at this point that he remembers that he, himself, is inside his Eva, and notices the red flashing timer next to his head. _88:88_ it reads; hadn't the power cable been disconnected? He cocks his head in confusion, Unit 01 following his movement, and… oh. There appears to be someone hitchhiking on his arm.

Shinji Ikari is tired at this point. He has long-since reached his limit for psychological mind-f_ing BS for the day, and desires to make this opinion known to the world.

Unfortunately, he is inside a giant war machine that has been free-falling through air for a little while now. And giant war machines tend to weigh a few tons, as dictated by the laws of physics, gravity, and plot convenience. Things that weigh a few tons fall _fast._

The other Evangelion's palm is about to make a big impression on his face. Shinji realizes this. Thus the only words he can be bothered to summon in all honesty are crude.

"Aw, f_nuggets."


	4. Screw You, Manager!

_Disclaimer: Do these disclaimer things only apply to the first chapter? Because if I've gone three years without figuring that out yet, I'm cuttin' a brotha._

Chapter 4: Ikari Shinji is Ikari

The Third Child, pilot of the most epic (and only) purple Angel-killing machine he knows of, is having an interesting day so far; if he thought about it, he'd been getting the warning signs of it going sideways from the moment he woke up to the minute it took for the Angel to eat him.

Over the course of how-many hours he'd spent in the darkness, he'd rediscovered his imaginary friend, nicknamed him 'Chess', tuned up his air guitar and played it for the first time in weeks as Chess sang about cake, SCIENCE, and weapons of butt destruction.

"_Taste my lightning, f_er!_"

Shinji hadn't dared to ask if the song was supposed to be about intercourse or not as it kept a certain AI preoccupied with alternative lyrics, ergo him from becoming bored. Still, the song was a short one, Chess quickly changing the tune to heavy metal and deciding to take a break after he started headbanging the exit hatch.

"_Ow!_"

"You alright man?"

"_No!_"

"You sound fine to me."

"_I taste blood!_"

Since then, Shinji had attacked a shiny white giant with black holes for eyes, some blondish kid that could've been a guy version of Rei, and his own Eva's shadow, which shouldn't have been physically possible. He'd seen _things_ floating by in the void that he's sure that he shouldn't have seen yet, in this life or any other. He's had conversations with himself that he honestly hoped to never have with his kid some day, were he to ever have kids, then argued with 'himself', and _won_.

"Objection! Neither of you knew I was the father for three whole years!"

"Okay, one? I couldn't talk and you were never around. And two... well, that really says something about your performance with Ma, doesn't it?"

"You wordy son of a bitch."

"I'll be the son if you're the bitch."

"Motherf_er."

"That would be you. How did that ever work out, I will continue to wonder..."

"Shut up! I will turn this Eva inside out and laugh _as we both die_! _IN SPACE!_"

"Well, actually, only you would die..."

"Please, bitch, I'm the only one that would ever touch your mother that way! Your future? _Fucked_."

"... Touche, Father."

Yes, it had been an interesting day so far. Especially when he met those people he thought he knew in that place he thought he was supposed to be, tried to say 'hi' and fell out of the void and into this place... this surreal, stick a hotdog in your nose and sneeze, off-kilter place that he vaguely recognized, where apparently humans were an endangered species and Angels had a natural environment mostly made of water.

"What."

At least, that's what he's thinking when the blur he thinks is an Angel grabs him by his face and drags him into the lake of Tokyo-3.

* * *

"Is this really happening?" The 'Second Child', ex-pilot of his own mother and "Destroyer of Worlds" among daemons, was slightly -_very_ slightly- worried. Most people would be, after falling out of an inter-dimensional being from skyscraper height through a highly-oxygenated atmosphere and slamming face-first into the primordial soup of human souls that was the LCL Sea. Of course, 'most people' would be unconscious, in shock, dead, or having a panic attack (thus somehow managing to drown themselves in a highly-oxygenated environment) at that point, so he counts as an anomaly.

Just like the German girl slicing through the water ahead of him.

"Looks like it, yeah. This is really happening. Although your definition of 'this' might be different from mine, so I'd really appreciate it if you just shut up until we figure out how to fix 'this' unless you have any better ideas than the one I'm having now, 'kay?"

Asuka, meanwhile, was only slightly more nervous than a squirrel that has just discovered cafe lattes and the BB gun. Of course, in this situation it could be taken to mean that she was saner or more shook up of the two of them, but while he was actually wondering about their safety for a moment, she was having an internal freak-out over having lost a clingy blue-haired elf somewhere between the 'sky' and 'water' part of their trip.

Really, just how did she lose the monkey when she'd been_ latched onto her neck?_

There was also the part where neither of them should have been able to talk, let alone hear each other, through the mixture they were swimming through. Beyond that, how they were staying out of the way of two giant mechs that were sumo-wrestling underwater was beyond her. However, she did not want to question logic as, the last time she had tried to, things hadn't turned out so well and she'd gotten stabbed in the eye.

As well as her pancreas, gall bladder, liver, stomach cavity, a small bit of her spine, and spleen, her heart ironically untouched. No, she didn't want to go through anything even _almost_ like that again.

"But it doesn't make any sense!" He pouts behind her, appreciating the trill-effect their surroundings had on his voice and now referring to something _completely_ different from the situation; why was it that, no matter how hard he kicked, he just _couldn't_ catch up to her speed? This might have been because he was 'floating' towards her on his back, feet barely moving, but he doesn't consider that, so let's leave the physics and lack of sense involved alone. "None of this makes sense!"

See.

"When did _anything_ ever make sense?"

"When being socially awkward wasn't considered cool," he offers.

"Huh?"

"When Twinkies didn't have an expiration date," he tries again.

"... So, before either of us were even born?"

"Well, yeah, but that's whatthey _wanted_ you to think. The point is-"

"Wait, who's _they_?"

"I plead the fifth," he counters suddenly, and Asuka has to wonder for a second '_are we on the same page here I seem to be lost.'_

"For some reason, that sounds like something Kaji would say. Quit it." she finally says. "I don't remember exactly where you got that from, but I'm sure it doesn't apply here. Stupid."

"Of course it does! Legally, this is no longer Tokyo-3, so in this new world order, I plead the fifth!" Either she was slowing down, confused, or he was going faster. Either way, he was gaining on her and that was all he cared about. Hell, if she knew he was trying to race her, that would be all _she_ cared about, so the less she knew the better. _Although_, he registers vaguely, _something seems to be missing here..._

"... And what the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"I'm reserving my right to not answer certain questions that would be detrimental to our, rather, _my_, credibility," he spouts off, not really hearing what he was saying nor actually caring. He had used more than a few words he didn't recognize there, and as long as he kept talking, she couldn't interrupt to call his bluff. "Now, if you had asked that question in a different context, you would be getting a more direct answer instead of this drivel that has possibly distracted you from the fact that common sense is _dead_."

Asuka blinks, turning around fully in the liquid to fully focus on him. He raises an eyebrow, with an air of superiority that instead comes across as a brain-dead 'now wut.'

"That doesn't... I... never mind, just back up a minute. What?"

"Don't know, do ya," he sticks his tongue out, eyes closed and hands behind his head as he floats by, and immediately regrets it. '_Note from Ego, to Common Sense: when breathing lifeblood, don't stick tongue out by itself for __any__ reason. Side-Note: LCL does __not__ taste like victory-'_

The kick Asuka sends to impact his flat stomach comes faster than it should have underwater, the blow softened by the LCL as he spews bubbles.

"This, stupid Second, is what I think of your 'fifth,'" she deadpans, sending her other foot to his back before kicking off of and leaving him floundering beneath her. "You say things don't make sense? Fine, they don't make sense. But if you're gonna keep whining about it then I have no choice. I will find some way to kill you, soon, and make it look like an accident. Assuming you don't die and keep pissing me off, I will rip out your heart, cut off your head, and wield them as my spoils of war. If anybody else comes back from the LCL and asks, you were a zombie and I didn't have a gun on hand."

"Ooooo 'kay," he clears his throat, having caught his breath and actually taking a minute to register what she's saying as he treads water. "... And what if I live through that?"

"You really shouldn't, but if worst comes to worst, I'll have the Stooges cut your body to pieces and I burn what's left," _and why is this turning me on_, Asuka asks herself as she floats back. "Still, I keep the head, if only to violate it every few days with my feet. Gotta vent somehow."

"Tsk. And this is assuming I don't bite your toes off?" She gives him a look, and for a second he thinks that she's blushing. Then she's in his face, wide-eyed and blank-faced.

"Stupid Second~, you keep forgetting that you're a pervert before anything else," she pinches his cheek and he blinks. Looks down, looks back at her, blinks again. "See? On second thought, I don't even have to kill you. I can just ban 'fun time'."

It's Shinji's turn to go wide-eyed, wondering just how he would have reacted if this kind of thing happened before the end of the world for all of a minute. Then his mouth moves. "But-but-but we haven't even _tried_ fun time yet! Uh, please don't ban me?"

Asuka smiles for a second. "Then shut up, will ya? And get your story together if we're gonna explain this to the others, because I still don't know just where the _hell_ we've been."

* * *

A short, pale girl lies on her side atop the surface of the lake, subconsciously using her internal AT field as a cushion to float in place as she got recently developed facts straight. After all, it was important to know who she was hanging around, and having been asleep for the trip over to this world (for that was all it could be, another world), she might as well take care of figuring things out now, before anything got out of hand.

Who was the guy that helped bring her to life? Many words came to mind when she first looked at him; brother, son, father, lover, first buddy, life-bringer, and Angel-Slayer to name a few. She had settled on 'Kami' to dissipate any confusion. His shattered experiences were in her head, as well as another's, which brought her to life.

Who was the girl that helped shape her soul? Less words came to mind in thinking of her; rival, second friend, witch, lover, Nazi, and Angel-Slayer were the biggest, that stood out the most. She had settled on 'Mommy,' knowing that was as close as she would get to a good definition. Her twisted emotions and scars were in her heart, as well as another's, which lit the light of her core.

Who was the woman in the background, hovering, silent, sending off the 'I'm not home' signal? Words came to mind, but three stood out. No-Name, Kami's Minion, and Ancient Aunt Haggis. No-Name seemed a good enough description without offending anyone. After all, she hadn't gotten a thing from her besides the too-large skirt made out of a lab coat... and she wanted for nothing more.

Whose shirt was she wearing? After a debate between Mommy and Kami... Kami ended up giving up his shirt, for which she was confused. Why, exactly, did she need all this clothing, anyway? But that question could wait for later.

Whose memories were sifting through her mind? Did it matter? They weren't hers, while at the same time, they were what defined her. But who was 'she'? Was she just a name? No, she was more than that. She is more than a name. But she didn't even _have_ a name yet. What was her name…?

'_Usually the parents give the offspring a name_,' she pulls from memories that aren't hers. '_But I'm not 'offspring,' I'm... different. Mommy hasn't given me a name yet. Why not? Because… she hasn't had any time. She's busy right now. Why didn't Kami give me a name? He's busy too. They're both busy… but they're here for me, even now. They brought me here, to this place, their home, instead of leaving me back there, awake and alone right? They brought me with them. Do they care about me…? Why wouldn't they? I shouldn't bother them to make a name for me. I can do at least that much myself._'

The girl nods to herself, rolling off her side, and sitting up. She keeps her eyes shut as she yawns, then blinks into sunlight…

'_… Ow. Alright. I know what this is called. 'Sun'. It kind of hurts to looks at it. I need to stop staring... right now_,' she thinks, squinting daggers at the star before looking in another direction. Ironically, this is the moment a large chunk of concrete falls from above, hitting the water not ten feet away from her. She jumps as splashback rises-

When the sudden spraying wave of water clears, she's still sitting there, dry, under the shell of mist her AT-field had created at a moments notice. Curiously, she looks up... nothing but more falling rocks, and shaking buildings. She cocks her head to the side as she moves to evade, only then noticing the ripples moving across the surface of the water. Then she, instead, looks down...

And sees two large shadows tangled under the surface of the water, shifting from building to building below. And putting each other through said buildings. _Oh_. So _that's_ why stuff's falling down... The girl blinks as she bends down, tapping at the surface with one finger and instinctively spreading her Overmind to get a better grip on what's going on.

'_E... Evan... Evangelion?... Angel?_' Words that quickly gain meaning to her as matches pop up from her memories. '_Why are they fighting each other? Eva aren't supposed to fight each_ _other...' _A flood of memories and images come to mind at the statement- giant purple fists, smashing in a dark, possessed face. Grappling with the red behemoth while the boy beside them walks on air.

_'... I stand corrected. Anyway... shouldn't they run out of power soon? It would be bad if they both ran out of power underwater like this... wouldn't it? But Kami and Mommy used to do this kind of thing, too, so bad things wouldn't happen... Hmmm...'_

With nary a thought beyond that, she stands up, jumps off a platform shaped by her AT field, and bounces off the surface a few times before diving into the lake.

* * *

Touji was excited, to say the least. After losing his shirt and shoes on the shoreline, it hadn't taken long at all to get to the fallen and, at that point, inactive Eva. On top of that, he'd been able to get inside easy enough, without any outside assistance at all.

These are things that should have troubled him because a normal human couldn't get this deep underwater without training or equipment, and on top of that, he was going _toward_ an _Eva_. Something he'd told himself, months ago, he would never again do on purpose. But of course, things changed, and he had called dibs, so he wasn't thinking about any of the above.

The trouble actually came when he tried to start it up. Seeing as things hadn't gone so well with Unit 03 and he's tried a lot of things to just forget about it, he can't remember what was normally supposed to happen, as he'd been out cold for most of his First Ride. But things have a way of working out for one Suzuhara Touji.

Since both he and the Eva _were_ at the bottom of a few hundred gallons of LCL, the entry plug had been flooded when he'd come in, and was full by the time he'd shut the hatch.

Since he had been able to strap himself in, and at least attempted to talk himself through the process again, Unit 04's standby processors were able to recognize the language, and set itself to recognize Japanese and reboot. Since he hadn't gotten to the "Synchro Start!" part of the setup until after the language was set, he was only slightly ecstatic when the HUD screens lit up around him.

It was at this point that Touji remembers '_hey, hey, should this thing really work when it's not plugged in?_' Then he shrugs, and assures himself that this one probably wasn't infected by an Angel. Yeah, all the Angels are dead, after all. Just like everyone else, if nobody else comes back. On top of that, this thing had come out of a hole in the sky, so less and less chance of it trying to eat his face... maybe. _'Now, how do I get this thing to swim...?'_

It was an honest mistake when he whacked Unit 01 in the face as he surfaced. In all honesty, he hadn't expected Unit 04 to be equipped with underwater gear, nor did he actually realize that it wasn't. The jet boosters had automatically fired up at his thoughts of swimming, and while the apparatuses were normally used for small jumps, that was for _normal_ Evas in _normal_ situations.

This was the fourth model of the Eva production line, and the first to be manually equipped with an S2 engine, providing power under (un)necessary conditions. This was already a break from Unit 02's model, which was to be the base for every other model from that time on, but on top of that, the 4th Eva was built in America; the land of UFOs and WMDs. Why _wouldn't_ it be equipped for sustained flight?

Besides that, this wasn't a normal situation. At _all_.

Of course, Touji doesn't know this, nor does he expect this, and at that point he was just happy it activated. So when he was surfacing, he really didn't see the giant purple behemoth falling towards him.

Really. And even if he had, what reason did he have to believe his eyes? Eva-01 was floating somewhere off in space, according to Shinji. Why would it come back for revenge?

On the other hand, he hadn't expected Unit-04 to register the Evangelion Test Type as an Angel, and set attack functions on autopilot either. Didn't mean he didn't take the situation for what it was.

"Hmm? Hmm?" Touji pinches his cheek. No, he's not dreaming. Or maybe he is; where there were once simple handles that he vaguely recognized as customary for interface with the Evangelions, there are now twin joysticks rising from his armrests. Several large, colorful buttons cover the top ends, where his thumbs would go, and as he wraps his hands around them, he can feel a switch under his trigger fingers.

"... I can work with this," he tells himself. "Yeah."

And that's when he's reminded of what he's messing with. Namely, Unit-01.

By way of approximately ten-thousand metric tons of 'Fuck You' impacting Unit-04's face.

* * *

_A/N: Okay, okay, at this point this one is purely for the lulz, as a rough draft. Why submit a rough draft of an entire story to ? Because if I don't do it now, I'll never get around to the real thing. If you yet question the sanity or physics of anything involved in the above, refer to various search engines OR the review button below. Assuming anyone actually read this far with their brain intact._

_The irony of this chapter is that I've been trying to update it for 3 months, after misplacing my muse for half a year, while it constantly failed to save any important changes. Here's to finding frickin' loopholes._


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